Risk register · entry
Q-F · FraudFTX / Alameda
A backdoor let customer deposits fund the trading arm until it collapsed.
The fifth quadrant, where the thing was never real. The tell is that the story is too clean.
Why this room
The payoff structure started simple and one-sided (a hidden account exemption skimming deposits with a knowable, bounded mechanism), which is classic Q-F; but once the FTT-driven bank run hit, the tail behavior flipped from contained to systemic and contagious across counterparties and retail holders worldwide, the signature of Q4, which is why the case is flagged as a quadrant-morpher rather than a stable Q-F event.
The record
- $8 billion hole in FTX customer accounts (DOJ/court figure)certain
- $1.7 billion defrauded from FTX equity investorscertain
- $1.3 billion defrauded from Alameda lenderscertain
- ~$65 billion in effective credit line Alameda could draw via the allow_negative flaglikely
- 25-year prison sentence for Sam Bankman-Fried, March 2024certain
- $11 billion ordered in forfeiturecertain
- Bankruptcy filed November 11, 2022 (FTX plus 100+ affiliates, Delaware)certain
- CoinDesk report on Alameda balance sheet published November 2, 2022, triggering the runcertain
- ~$6 billion in customer withdrawals within roughly 72 hours of the CoinDesk reportlikely
- Sequoia Capital wrote down roughly $214 million investmentlikely
- Estate recovered over $15 billion in assets by 2024-2025, including Anthropic and Robinhood stakeslikely
- 98% of creditors approved to recover ~119% of claim value under 2024 court-approved planlikely
- Over one million customer accounts affecteduncertain
Sources
The book
This entry is one of 111 in the register. The full story, and what it cost the people who lived it, is in Risky Business by Claudia Zeisberger, David Munro and Joanna Reijgersberg-Siew.
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